General Chat

I am finding it irritating to constantly have to contact other users and get their permission before being able to see records.
This is a major downside as far as I am concerned. I am making all my progress on Ancestry, where the majority of trees are public. I can sit down with Ancestry and search on a name and immediately know if there is a link or not. The whole process in Genes is tedious and long winded. I will not be renewing my subscription when it comes up.

Your choice Robert but you wont find all trees on Ancestry either not all trees are public. As far as I am concerned my tree is my property to share with who I choose, and I never refuse a request for information but I am the one who has proved my tree by paying for all certificates etc. How do you know that information you find on public trees is correct, without checking with the tree owner how do you know they have not just guessed and put somebody on their tree?

Oh well, Robert, your loss... you wouldn't be able to access my tree on Ancestry, either..... not without my permission.

As Ann said, it costs a lot of time and money to verify the info we have... and quite a bit that has been readily available on Ancestry with regard my own ancestors in other trees is very often totally incorrect, for instance, in one, my father was my son and my brother my husband, so good job I am thorough and check it all out for myself....

I will happily and proudly offer all I have to those I am certain have a connection... but don't want any old Tom Dick or Harriet delving around in my gene pool, thank you, lolol

Love

Daff xxx

I think you are missing the point. If you are not prepared to pool your effort with others, your progress will be slow and cumbersome. I see no point reinventing the wheel where someone has already trod the same path. I certainly would not have been able to make links from Scotland to Cambridge to Hampshire to Ireland in a few weeks without access to the Public trees on Ancestry, LDS, Rootschat and various other sites that are generous with their information. In the same light, I have been happy to share with others information that I have gleaned from certificates, trips to the local archive offices, CDs from Family History Societies, etc.
I have dozens of potential matches on Ancestry and GR but while I can check a potential match in Ancestry with a couple of clicks, I have to go through a laborious process in GR.
I do like to have confirmation of a source and am obviously dubious about those with trees with 17,000 people in them but unless people readily share information, general progress will be slow.
I find it interesting that some FHS hang onto their data like grim death but others are happy to share it.

My tree is also private. If I contact anyone or they contact me, I will give them the information they need for that part of the tree, have also sent photos and copies of certs. Just because people have a tree does not mean they have to share ALL branches with anyone or everyone. Any information that is shared with me I still verify eventually with census and certs and any other information I can get.

I am not being selfish, but what would anyone want with my husbands tree if they are only researching one tiny branch of mine.

I would also like to add that some people tread down the wrong path and I am unwilling to follow it. Just because the information is on someone's elses tree does not mean it is correct and I have found it often is very wrong. One person with the wrong information can carry over to hundreds of others. Rather do my own research.

Gail

I am not missing the point at all Robert, I have said I have and will share my information, I just like to know there is a connection, it would be a pity if my information was 'stuck' onto somebody's tree just because one of my names happened to coincide with one of theirs. And believe me, it happens. I see that you prove your information with certificates etc so anybody lifting your information is lucky but it is not so with everybody as you can see from Daff's post. And I have not been slow to glean information from people on here, just this week from hot matches (in both cases one match) I found two useful and happy connections. Why be in a rush anyway, I enjoy taking my time over my tree, don't want to go at a gallop.

I have a very large tree, when you calculate that one 3x great grandfather had 75 grandchildren and another had 105, a tree will build quickly.

Of the many branches on my mothers and fathers side of they family, why would you want all that information, if you are from my fathers side of the family, I would share that information and not my mothers.

Sounds like you want to build you tree with very little work involved.

Gail

All depends what you're in it for. I love researching - I've been doing this for over twenty years and have rarely come across contacts who have more information than me. On the rare occasions when someone has researched further back than me on a line I end up feeling quite indifferent about it because - for me - ancestors come to life as you research them bit by bit.

Not all the public trees on Ancestry are 100% correct as I know a couple of friends of mine have done their trees on Ancestry and have never bought a cert or been to the records office or anywhere for info but the chair they sit on in front of their computer.

So you may get duff information from any of the trees on Ancestry and as you say you can get a connection but then you would have to double check all the info all over again.

Why the rush to do your tree,some of us have been doing our trees for 20/30 years and have had the enjoyment of trailing round records offices and paying for certs to verify all the info.

I have the basic membership combined with Ancestry. Ancestry gives me that bit extra i need regarding records etc. But i have had so many people contact me on GR , People that have kept in contact. We have exchanged photo's etc. So if i were you i would think carefully before giving up G.R
Susan

To be quite honest I want to move back rather than sideways.
By the same token I am likely to have 256 Gx6 Grandparents. I know the names of four of them who came from Berkshire and Hampshire but that is only from having shared information with a lady in Scotland who pointed me in the direction of Cambridge and Middlesex.
I have been happy to share any information I have, while wending my way through the highways and byways of England and everyone I have met so far has been happy to do the same. The Rootschat community is very helpful and the Cambridge and Hampshire FHS stands at WDYTHA were able to share their knowledge and provide CDs. I suspect a trip to Kew will be required at some point and again, I will share whatever I pick up, with the people I have corresponded with on my way. A chap in Australia provided me with Hampshire information and in return I have been able to confirm names and dates.
I don't think any of this would have been possible without the basic trees being searchable. I am sure I would still be thrashing around in the Scottish records trying to make some progress.

Robert, whilst I use Ancestry a lot, I have actually found no living relatives through it, they all found me here lol and of the trees that I have looked at with very few exceptions they contain random guesses at who people were, not facts, and I have more information which I then pass on to them rather than vice versa other than on the very outer branches of my tree, eg marriages to cousins etc .

Just a point on large trees...I had a great deal of info from a one name study,a life time's work, as a tree it would have run to thousands....but though it was exhaustively checked and backed up by records, it was still not accurate, a fact which only i would have noticed, there being no record on it of my father's birth and therefore mine lol !.

Perhaps this is where we differ. I'm not sure I would want to spend 20 to 30 years trying to find out the name of a few ancestors.
I tend to get enthusiastic about things and then drop them after a while. Also, I'm not that interested in finding any living relatives. The people I have contacted are presumably relatives in a convoluted distant way but I don't think they or I would be particularly interested in a meet up or whatever.
The thrill to me is in the chase.
The records offices are great fun and our local one has frequent talks on things like the Poor Law and Manorial Rolls.
I am planning trips to the Record Offices of Cambridge, Berkshire and Hampshire and toying with the idea of a short holiday in County Wexford.
I am sure if I don't do it all now the mood will pass.

Perhaps this is where we differ. I'm not sure I would want to spend 20 to 30 years trying to find out the name of a few ancestors.
I tend to get enthusiastic about things and then drop them after a while. Also, I'm not that interested in finding any living relatives. The people I have contacted are presumably relatives in a convoluted distant way but I don't think they or I would be particularly interested in a meet up or whatever.
The thrill to me is in the chase.
The records offices are great fun and our local one has frequent talks on things like the Poor Law and Manorial Rolls.
I am planning trips to the Record Offices of Cambridge, Berkshire and Hampshire and toying with the idea of a short holiday in County Wexford.
I am sure if I don't do it all now the mood will pass.

It certainly is where you differ from most people on here Robert. We all enjoy the thrill of the chase but to say you will lose interest is a strange concept to me and I suspect others on here. I don't just collect name, I like to know how they lived, maybe who they lived next door to, what occupations they followed etc etc. You can learn so much from this hobby, and that is without attending lectures.

Thankfully anyone who has ever contacted me has been as eager as I am to establish a link and to prove the link just as I do. Except for one person who just farmed information so that his tree had 1000s of names on it. As for making contact with living relatives, that is invaluable. They can tell you about parents, grandparensts and great grandparents from their familes view which can often add so much insight into the way people lived and worked. I have made friends from contacts, found 2nd cousins that I have met up with, exchanged photos which can show family resemblances and you can get a history and be aware of any genetic problems.

I don't want trees to be made public. I still want to research and enjoy my finds no matter how trivial. I also try to establish how a person may be connected before allowing access to my information.

This site has been great along with others for obtaining information, sharing information and at times helping others to find their information. I have been a member for over 7 years and I am still getting help and contacts. The latest one being last week and it is great!

The information took years to accumalate and often neeeds years to find it. Roll on retirement when I can spend more time researching!

Hi Robert

I do understand and, to a degree, agree with what you are saying.......it's the waiting for someone to answer you on here that sometimes takes ages (or even never!) if the member you are trying to make contact with doesn't come in here very often.

I only keep a very limited tree on here and NONE at all on Ancestry. If I did put one on Ancestry then I would most definitely keep it a private one. I see no point at all in any old Tom, Dick or Harry adding a load of my unrelated ancestors to their tree when the connection is very distant........and unfortunately that happens all the time.

The trees on Ancestry (same as here and anywhere) aren't always accurate either. There is someone on Ancestry who has my ancestors on his public tree and despite my contacting him and giving him the proof that his information is wrong won't remove them........thereby allowing others to perpetuate the same error! I have all the certificates, he doesn't!

Especially true for someone new to FH and doesn't realise that some people don't research their trees properly, and being new and all excited at finding so much info readily available to them, just copies it wholesale :-((

Mary

Hi Robert

I too understand how you feel when you are waiting for a reply from someone via GR. At times this person may never ever reply at all, maybe they are no longer a member......BUT for about 83p a month or 20p a week isn't it worth renewing. You never know what info you may gain from being a member and, just as importantly for me, how you could help someone else.

As you will see from my board name I do not live in the UK and the help I receive from this site is always gratefully received however long the wait.

Wendy x

You may think it is slow on here Robert but believe me it is a lot faster than it was in the days before computers .
Then it was necessary to look through all the names in the Family History magazines of the counties that you were interested in and write letters in all directions to ask if your Luke Lee happened to be connected to their Lee family. It took ages to get a reply if they even bothered to reply and I don't think I found any relatives using that method but I had a lot of nice letters to read.

Another method was to go to the nearest L.D.S. Library and look at the I.G.I. and if you found something of interest you could get a form from the library and fill in a request to look at the original record ,supply two American dollar notes and post it off to Salt Lake City. Sometimes it was possible to contact the person who had put the original entry in but I think a lot of their ancestral entries may be a bit suspect.
I received copies of the Parish registers showing Births and Marriages of my Scottish Relatives like that that had occurred before Civil registration began in Scotland.

Sitting at a Microfische machine for hours at a Family History Society and looking at all sorts of things like Census, Cemetary records, Emigration, there were lists for everything was another way. I used to be lucky to find two facts a year using those methods but it was interesting because there was always something to look for and there wasn't a lot of information about as there is now.. The internet has done wonders for genealogy.

robert


I find this is getting rather boring .... you seem to want everything provided for you


this is at least the third thread on which you have stated your position that all trees should be available for you to remove as much information as you like or want. Granted, I think the other threads have all been started by other people, and I think this is the first one that you have yourself started.


Your position is contrary to that of a lot of people on here ...... and I think that is because most of us distrust both a) the trees we see on any site until we have ourselves checked out the information, and b) because we have all had information on our trees stolen from us by people who are in fact unrelated.

I haven't quite had my brother made into my father on this site .... alrhough I did on a One Name Study of my maiden name! ......... but I have "lost" a great aunt and her husband to someone who only saw the name and places of birth and death, and never noticed that there was a 100 year difference in birth years! Granted it was unusual to find two men with the same name, same birthplace and same place of death!



sylvia